Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online

[0:00] Connecting your bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks is the fastest way to accurately record your company's financial transactions. Let's go over how to connect a bank or credit card account to QuickBooks and choose how far back you want QuickBooks to pull your transaction history. There are two ways to bring in transactions from your bank and credit card accounts.

[0:21] The first option is to connect your bank or credit card so QuickBooks downloads your transactions automatically. The second option is to download your company's historical transactions from your bank or credit card in a file. If your bank or credit card company does not provide a connection directly to QuickBooks, this will be your only option.

[0:42] If you want to manually upload your transactions from a file you download from your bank, this other video will show you how. Let's connect an account. Select your bank or credit card from the list of popular financial institutions. Or enter the name of your bank or credit card company, and select it from the list.

[1:02] You'll need to enter the username and password you use to log into your bank or credit card's online banking. Each bank and credit card has its own security features and may require a few more steps.

[1:14] Once you've finished with your bank or credit card sign in steps, you may see an intermediary window like this one, where QuickBooks asks for consent to access each of your bank and/or credit card accounts in order to pull transactions from your financial institution into your QuickBooks. This window will look differently for each financial institution, and this step is for security purposes only.

[1:38] If you see a window like this, check off all of your accounts in order to avoid connection issues in the future. This does not mean you must connect each of these accounts to your QuickBooks at this time. Once you've completed the required steps in this window, you'll see this screen. This is where you select each account you want to connect to your QuickBooks at this time.

[1:59] Note that you don't have to select everything you see. You should only select the accounts that are relevant to your business. If you see a personal account that isn't business related, you can leave it unselected. At this point, QuickBooks will connect your online account with one on your chart of accounts.

[2:17] If you've already set up the account on your chart of accounts, you can choose the relevant account from the dropdown menu. If you have not yet created that account on your chart of accounts, select Add new to create it from here.

[2:31] Once you've selected the accounts you want to connect, you need to choose how far back you want QuickBooks to go when it downloads transactions from your bank or credit card account. The default choice is the beginning of the year. You can choose any date you'd like by selecting Custom from the dropdown menu.

[2:50] If this bank or credit card account already contains transactions within QuickBooks, we recommend selecting a date that falls immediately after the most recent transaction. When you are ready, select Connect. Once the connection is complete, select Done. You'll now see all of your business transactions that cleared your bank or credit card from the date you entered through today.

[3:13] When more transactions clear your bank, they'll appear on this list for you to review. The next step is to categorize them so QuickBooks adds them to the correct accounts. Follow the link at the end of this video to learn how to do that. Now you're ready to connect your bank and credit cards to QuickBooks online.